#nephistuck

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

agreed 100%. i see most people depict human gamzee as Black, and to me it feels like a superficial read of the character at best. and more than a bit uncomfortable tbh, considering the fact that gamzee's character is... a violent drug-addict with a deadbeat dad. i don't know whether or not hussie was being intentionally racist when they initially wrote gamzee, but either way, i'm not interested in participating in it. i don't think gamzee being Black adds to his character at all, i think it just reduces him to a racist caricature, and in a world where i can choose how i imagine these characters, i can think of more interesting stories to tell with him.

for example, how a lot of bigoted and abusive white boys can fly under the radar because they're a "chill dude" and people dismiss their red flags as endearing ignorance, and their appropriation as appreciation or whatever. until something sets them off, or you let your guard down, and now suddenly you don't know them at all. listen, i grew up in utah surrounded by conservative religious people. idk about other highly religious groups, but mormons work very hard to keep up appearances of being polite and welcoming to everyone, and keeping their bigotry quiet. but once it finally shows its face, it's like they become a completely different person. i've lost countless friends by finding out years into the friendship that i don't actually know them at all, and that they secretly wished me or my friends ill, or thought our existence was inherently wrong. that's what gamzee is to me, that's what makes him scary. maybe the signs were there, but you didn't see them because he was a highblood who was nice to you, so you assumed he was harmless, and he wasn't.

tbh the whitest trolls to me are the zahhaks and the makaras bc of what kind of internet-people equius and gamzee represented at the time. juggalo culture is predominantly white working class folks or white folks on the poverty line, and in the US bc of segregation, that meant a lot more mixing of cultures than you see in middle class and up areas. its the same with canada and the UK. so you see a lotta black influences in there bc of how US class structures have been constructed. its a melting pot made by and for the working class. a lotta irl juggalo stuff is pretty chill from what ive heard? as a movement they want to demolish class heirarchy and build community. ofc theres room for abuse in the lifestyle though, thats not unique to juggalos. gamzee as a rich white boy living a juggalo lifestyle but not getting it right and actually reinforcing what irl juggalos fight against makes perfect sense for his character

equius on the other hand is like belligerently Hegemonic White Cis Dude coded to me. he represents young white cis boys on the precipice of falling into the manosphere pipeline, imo. specifically bc theyre lonely and insecure. his spot on the hemospectrum is perfect for breeding that shit. he's been told his whole life that hes better than most of the ppl he knows. hes higher up caste wise than most of his friends, particularly nepeta, but still feels inferieor to his friends who ARE higher up than he is, which is what sparks that hyperspecfic brand of insecurity in white cis boys. their only real problem is that someone else whos even more priviledged is looking down on them. and gamzee also being white just kind of compounds that bc of the sense of 'competition' between white guys or whatever, to be The Whitest Squarest* Guy who is On Top (haha) Of All Other White Square Guys

everyone else? nah. its so obviously not whats happening. which really just highlights the fact that large swaths of fandom still believe that white is default in terms of character design. and its insane to me how ppl can say w/ their whole chest that the hemospectrum has nothing to do w/ race, its just abt class, when racism and class are intrinsically tied. like theyre horrible twin sisters, man, you cant rlly have one without the other. enforced class models in society dont work unless theres someone up top deeping someone else Deserving of having less bc theyre not the exact same type of person as them

*using the term Square here not to denote any kind of 80s movie nerddom but to try to describe normies who are toxic abt it and think everyone else should be like them

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

this scene where dave sees john in person for the first time is SO CUTE. dave is so fucking nervous, look at that wobbly pixel mouth. he whispered wow 3 times and only said hi after being prompted by karkat lmaoo. and karkat watching them interact with this dumb little smile bc he knows just how excited dave is. UGH love them

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

no but it's so funny if john just does not give a single fuck about dirk. he's like errr no offense dave but he's kinda cringe?

JOHN: i swear i'm not homophobic but... he's like kinda gay? you seriously mean to tell me he actually likes those weird puppets? dave i thought we both agreed that puppet stuff was pretty lame

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

this is a big reason why i just cannot get behind erisol as a ship. fighting is not always romantic for trolls! sometimes the other guy is just a bigoted maniac about to get you and all your friends killed, and you know you're the only one around powerful enough to stop him. there's no way sollux respects eridan enough to feel genuine black feelings for him

it’s amusing that people will understand right away that “pity” is a metaphorical/alien term for something wayyyy more than just pity (for example. you never see takes about how unhealthy it is for trolls to only date people that they look down on for being pathetic) but nobody wants to see “hate” the same way. hate is always just “hate” and its gross and evil and toxic despite that textually not being the case in comic

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

this passage means way more to me than any amount of davekat smut that they could have written into the epilogues.

"he believes he could spend forever with him, in any configuration, any type of relationship, under any conditions of confusion or clarity." holy fucking shit i could cry. he doesn't care what they are, as long as they are.

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

i actually think it's so fucking romantic that in the epilogues, dave would rather never make a move on karkat than risk poisoning their relationship with the "conditioning" of his bro. every time he had a romantic or sexual thought about karkat, he had to feel it through dirk's narration, and scrutinize it against his trauma, and even without conscious awareness of why, he was still like No. karkat is the one thing my bro will not touch, even if that means i don't get to either.

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

i actually expected the first acts of homestuck to be a lot more boring than they have been, but i have had the privilege of reading them aloud in character voices with a seasoned homestuck, so yeah i basically won the babyhomestuck lottery

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

i wanna add that as soon as davesprite becomes davepeta and loses the sword of forced heroism/masculinity, they are immediately ready and eager to jump into action. davepeta being the one who ultimately brings down lord english in the epilogues really solidifies that the issue is not heroism or masculinity itself, but being forced into it. as soon as they were free from expectations/destiny and allowed to be whatever they wanted, davepeta chose to be a hero. they could have been irrelevant like most of the sprites were, and nobody would have cared, but they didn't. davepeta wanted to fight lord english, and not because they were "supposed" to.

what it says to me is that dave likely would have become a hero independently, if he'd been allowed a choice, but because he was violently forced into that role, it ultimately destroyed him. notably, the version of dave that did fight lord english had his head bitten off, before the villain who is the embodiment of toxic masculinity was finally defeated by the first nonbinary character in homestuck. like holy shit.

anyway, i think it says a lot about dave's relationship with his gender. maybe dave's Cool Guy presentation is what he'd choose in a different environment, but because he had no choice and was forced to perform masculinity for his survival, it's destroying him.

Pondering the sword as a symbol, in the context of Davepeta's arc. In the author commentary, it is said that the unbroken sword is representative of "The fully manifest, wholly embraced heroic arc. Suppressing reservations, answering the call, putting the tough training to use, despite the cost to oneself."

How fitting then, that Davesprite is impaled with one. This is an extremely obvious cost but also presents the question: what does all that really mean if you aren't the hero anymore? Post-retcon, they become part of Davepeta, their life and self are again irreconcilably changed when they become themself. I have an angle to look at this from. Dave connects their relationship with heroism, and thus the sword symbolism, to his relationship with masculinity.

"living up to the storybook idea of what a hero to me feels almost interchangeable with living up to societys snapshot of what a hard manly dude should be"

Fascinating in the context of Davepeta being nonbinary, and additionally, not wielding a blade. The dichotomy of broken/unbroken swords left behind for something new.

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

i love reading davekat shit from dave's perspective bc he's SO much more of a mess about it than karkat. karkat's like "gdi he's so pathetic i cant help but love him" and dave's like "fuck fuck fuck he's everything he's god he's beyonce and obama at the same time fuck fuck fuck"

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

dave & karkat both having nightmares after the game but dave's has him leaping out of bed throughout the night, and karkat's has him trapped in an inescapable paralysis hell that he can barely be woken up from

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

i hope davesprite and nepeta are having fun in there together. i hope they're all jumbled up in davepeta's brain drawing their fursonas, and learning how to tattoo, and having rap battles, and prancing around making up weird inside jokes that would make anyone else cringe. and maybe kissing a little, if they want

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

he gives bard vibes to me. bard of heart? although bard of light would be kind of hilarious. someone else said muse of rage and that's honestly incredible

have we classpected jar jar binks?

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

fic in which transmasc dirk creates a body for hal in his image, but leaves off the tits bc he assumes hal won't want them. when hal occupies the body and realizes, he throws a huge fit about it that completely bewilders both of them. this is how they figure out that they do not, in fact, share a gender or relationship with their body.

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

no see the strilondes know about their issues (a good chunk of them, at least) but are terrified of changing and losing the familiarity of whatever pain they're used to. what if the new pain is worse? that, or they're convinced they can't/don't deserve to change. the harleyberts though....... they're scared to even LOOK at themselves.

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

dave + kanaya = friendship

rose + karkat = friendship

that's the gist of it lmao rb if u agree

[the-troll-book-of-mormon]

yknow aside from the initial awkwardness of "youre openly gay dating my sister while im in the midst of a world-ending sexuality crisis", i think dave & kanaya get along great, and dave would think she's rad as fuck. kanaya might find him annoying, but in an endearing sort of way. i mean two of her closest friends are karkat & sollux lol

rose is obviously devastated that they get along so well, because it means they occasionally spontaneously gang up to pull some bizarre counter-psychobabble shit on her